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State aid could fall for nearly 200 school districts under new budget, once money for charter schools is deducted (database)

Kasich school funding.jpg

Gov. John Kasich's plan to have state aid "follow the student" when students attend charter schools instead of traditional ones became part of the final state budget this summer. That plan will mean reductions in aid, after money goes to charter schools, for more than a quarter of districts in the state.
(AP file)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- More than a quarter of Ohio school districts will likely receive less money from the state this school year than they did last school year, according to calculations by The Plain Dealer and new estimates from the legislature's research arm.

Though Republican legislators promised that no district would have a decrease in state aid under the new state budget they passed this summer, that doesn't hold up once you account for increases in the amount of money flowing out of school districts to charter schools under the new plan.

Statewide, both charter schools and traditional districts will see their basic state aid increase under the new budget, but the effects on individual districts vary and are complicated to sort out.

The most dramatic case those estimates reveal is the Cleveland school district, which has no aid increase from the 2012-13 school year to the current school year under the budget, but much higher deductions for charter students.

Depending on how you calculate it, the district will end up with $3 million to $4.5 million less for its students, after the state deducts a greater share for charter schools.

"We're going to be pretty flat on revenue and we're going to be paying more out on the charter school side," said Dennis Kubick, the district's controller. "We're going to net out less."

Cleveland is the only member of the Ohio 8, a partnership of the state's largest urban districts, to have a loss under the new budget. Each of the others will see large increases.

Republican leaders have said throughout the budget process that Cleveland will not receive an increase because the state has been keeping its aid at an even level for several years, even as the number of students in the district falls dramatically. Instead it maintains its current pre-deduction aid only because of the guarantee not to cut it.

East Cleveland would also be down $170,000 or $1.7 million, because of charter deductions, depending on how you calculate it. Warrensville Heights schools would be down about $60,000.

Even
the well-off Upper Arlington school district outside Columbus would
receive about $400,000 less after charter school deductions.

Those losses
aren't a surprise. Close observers predicted that many districts would
see losses after charter school deductions when the
new budget was passed June 29.

Republican legislative leaders
conceded the point at the time. Their definition of a "district" seeing
no decrease included both the traditional school district and students
from that district attending charter schools.

And all the major budget proposals this year -- starting with Kasich's original proposal and finishing with the final budget -- called for state aid to "follow the student" to charter schools. That has meant, in each version of the budget, greater base aid to charter schools per student and greater amounts of money going to charter schools depending on student needs and disabilities.

"When students choose to attend charter schools, state aid follows the student," Joshua Eck, spokesman for the Ohio Senate's Republican Majority Caucus, said this week. "The per-pupil base amount increased by $13/student and special education funding also grew with this budget to support students."

The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a statewide group representing charter schools, regularly notes that charter schools receive far less money per student than a traditional district, since they don't receive local tax money, with a small exception in Cleveland.

Marianne Lombardo, the group's vice president for research and accountability, said that the new budget plan only equalizes the amount of state money going to any school, district or charter, for a student.

"It's not that charters are getting any added bonus or preferential treatment," Lombardo said. "Any increases that you see are from the same formula that's applied to both sets of students."

Estimating how the state budget changes money going to each district is difficult because the number of students and their needs change every year. The most recent estimates from the LSC use the student population of the 2011-12 school year - the most recent for which full data was available - to show actual charter aid for that year and to project aid changes under the new budget formula.

The LSC projections do not predict how many more students will attend charters this year, or what their poverty levels or disabilities will be. The LSC projections were also not able to include actual deductions for charters for the 2012-13 school year because those are still being adjusted today.

The LSC projections and some additional calculations by The Plain Dealer, all limited by the mix of years, show:

* Charter schools will receive nearly $27 million more this school year than in 2011-12, under the new budget formula.

* Traditional districts will receive about $314 million more statewide under the new formula than in 2011-12, and about $257 million more than in the just-finished 2012-13 school year.

* When projected charter deductions are subtracted from projected state aid in this ongoing 2013-14 school year, 190 districts end up with less money than they had this past school year after charter deductions.

* The other districts all came out even, or ahead, because of low charter deductions or because they received aid increases large enough to offset them.

* The other seven districts in the Ohio 8 all received large increases that easily surpass charter deductions. Toledo, which was one of the few districts to see its charter deductions decrease, came out the furthest ahead.

Republican leaders are quick to note that Cleveland, despite losing about $3 million in aid in each of the two years of the state budget, will receive more than $6 million from the state's new Straight-A Fund. That fund is designed to promote innovations and ways to save money long-term.

Legislators earmarked that $6 million for Cleveland to use on the Cleveland Plan for Transforming Schools, the district and Mayor Frank Jackson's plan to overhaul and improve the district.

State Rep. Mike Foley, a Cleveland Democrat, said that Kasich should have made sure that Cleveland received more money after the governor so publicly supported the Cleveland Plan.

"To not offer any additional resources is, in my view, both disingenuous and folly," Foley said.

And Democratic legislators are quick to note that increases in basic aid to districts this budget do not make up for cuts Kasich made in aid and reimbursements to districts in his first two-year budget.

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